Inked in Orange
by hokkyokukou
Summary: Kuroko would easily sacrifice himself if it meant saving the friendships he had now, because they were worth the world to him. So when he received a letter claiming to be from the future telling him that the people most dear to him were going to die, he couldn't brush it off as a prank. Because he never wanted to lose them again. AkaKuro
1. the first letter

_"Mayuri! Mayuri, no—"_

_But the poor girl fell dead before his eyes, blood spilling out from the hole in her forehead and from the mess at the back of her head…_

_He hadn't wanted to use _that_, but he had no other choice now; he tore himself away from Mayuri's corpse and ran for the time machine. He couldn't—he refused to live in a world without her. They were going to take Mayuri away from him? He wouldn't allow it! If this was what the future dictated, then he would overwrite it._

"Kuroko!"

_He ground shook beneath his feet and his body felt like it had been duplicated and smashed in between two brick walls._

_And when he opened his eyes again, the world was bright and quiet…_

_Just the simple sound of life running through his fingertips again…_

"Hey! Kuroko! Geez, what are you reading that's gotten you so engrossed?"

With a slight shake of his head, Kuroko emerged from in between the pages, his eyes slightly unfocused.

"Kagami-kun. I apologize. This is a very interesting book, so I forgot about your existence."

Kagami guffawed.

"What kind of wording is… you know what, I won't even ask. C'mon, Coach is calling… something about a mis-delivered letter or something like that…"

"Letter?"

"Yeah. Apparently, it's for you, but it was delivered to Coach's house for some reason. C'mon, she said if I didn't find and bring you in five minutes, I'd have to climb Mt. Fuji ten times…"

"I don't think Coach would be that extreme," Kuroko said with a light chuckle. Nonetheless, he shut his book with more than a few regrets and clambered to his feet.

"Seeing as it would be her last practice before graduation, I wouldn't put it past her… something like 'going out with a bang…' I can imagine her saying something like that."

Kuroko smiled. He could see that, too. As long as it wasn't him who had to climb Mt. Fuji ten times, he was alright with it happening.

"Kagami!" Riko barked upon laying eyes upon the duo. "You have exactly one second to spare, so instead of making you climb Mt. Fuji ten times, you only have to do it once."

"What?! But I—"

Riko gave him a glare that told him to shut up or he would have to climb Mt. Fuji fifteen times, so he shut up.

"I don't know why this was sent to me, but it was," she said, handing a cream-colored envelope to Kuroko. "I didn't open it or anything, so rest easy. And be sure to come to the party this weekend and send us off well, you hear me?"

"Yes," Kuroko said. "Of course."

"And practice well, you two. We seniors might be busy with entrance exams and everything, but that doesn't mean the rest of you can slack off. If I return and find that you can't run a mile under five minutes—"

"C-Coach, that's impossible—"

"I'm having all your asses for dinner. Understood?"

"Yes!"

Riko waved at them cutely before making a beeline to the library, muttering something about how Hyuuga was probably making out with his dolls by now. Kagami looked at Kuroko with a hopeless shrug before tucking his hands behind his head and sighing.

"Man, can you believe time went by so fast?" he said. "In a few months, the senpai are gonna be gone, and then it's going to be you, me, and Furihata running the club…"

"Yes, time has flown since we've joined the basketball club," Kuroko agreed. "But that's not a bad thing. There's that saying, 'time flies when you're having fun.' And it was incredibly fun, wouldn't you agree, Kagami-kun?"

Kagami grinned, and clapped Kuroko on the back. "You bet it was. Next year, we're gonna get revenge on Touou's ass… damn that Aomine, he never stops getting better…"

Kuroko smiled one of his vague smiles.

"Although I, too, want to get my revenge… it's good to see Aomine without those wrinkles on his forehead. He looks much better when he's enjoying himself."

Kagami scoffed, but Kuroko knew that he agreed.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kuroko," he said. "Stop reading and don't forget to eat lunch."

"See you."

When Kagami was gone, Kuroko turned to his letter. It was indeed addressed to him, but oddly enough, sent to Riko's house. The envelope was thick and battered all over, like it had taken a beating in the mail carrier's car. And there was something about the handwriting that was rather unsettling…

Shrugging, Kuroko turned the envelope over and pulled it open. Despite its thickness, the envelope only contained one sheet of paper.

_To Kuroko Tetsuya—_

_To myself of five years ago._

"…huh?"

Kuroko blinked for a few seconds at the first two lines.

_To myself of five years ago._

"Of five years ago…"

What was that supposed to mean? Kuroko scanned the letter incredulously; the bogus level of the letter rose with each line that looked as if it had been scrawled out by hand in a hurry. And yet, while he could not believe it, that handwriting clung to the depths of his mind, forbidding him from simply dropping the letter in the trash and walking away.

_I do not have enough time. I hope you receive it on this day, January 20. If not, I apologize. It is my incompetence. I am sorry. I am sorry for many things. I do not have enough time._

_My name is Kuroko Tetsuya._

_I am you, five years into the future._

_I know you will not believe me, but I cannot entertain you. Tomorrow, January 21, something will happen that you must prevent at all costs. So please, listen to me. _

_On that day, Aomine-kun will be stabbed in the spine. He will be paralyzed from the waist down._

_A year later, he will take his own life. _

_You must find Aomine-kun after school and stay with him all afternoon. I beg of you. Believe me. Trust me. I've no time to say anything more._

_Kuroko Tetsuya_

The signature had been scratched in haste. Kuroko's eyes widened; that was _his _signature, there was no mistake about it. And now that he thought about it, the reason why the handwriting kept him reading was because it looked so similar to his own. Kuroko tilted his head. Whoever had devised this elaborate ruse had really carried it out well. To research his writing style and signature that thoroughly… maybe it had been Momoi trying to prank him.

Although, Momoi wasn't that sort of person…

Kuroko turned the letter over in his hands, wondering just what to make of it. Part of him was excited; the entire situation seemed like something straight out of a mystery novel. The other part of him was doubtful; why would something this exciting ever happen to an invisible person like him?

And the probability that Aomine were actually in danger was…

Well, what was the likelihood of something like that happening?

It was already January 21, the day 'Kuroko' deemed to be of importance. Nothing had happened, so what need was there to worry?

The paper was disintegrating at the edges. Kuroko picked at it mindlessly. You always heard of horrific stories happening to other people. Misfortune always struck leagues away from you such that they lingered around your mind for a few days but never really stuck. People who experienced such events were always the protagonists of a story. And Kuroko certainly was no protagonist. He smiled wryly. He was just a shadow, making the story for somebody else. The spotlight was never meant for him.

So he quietly folded up the letter and tucked it in his back pocket.

A group of girls ran out of the gates, their skirts and scarves fluttering in the cold wind. The days were short now and the painter of the sky started mixing colors earlier than ever to lead the sun to cross the horizon. Kuroko lifted his eyes to the blood red sky, feeling the strangest butterfly flutter in the pits of his stomach.

He had taken three steps towards the gate when he found himself rooted to the ground.

_But if it were true…_

_If it really were true…_

He walked through the gates quietly. Then, little by little, his steps picked up until he had broken into a sprint, the winter air cutting his lungs cruelly as his breaths came in short and heavy. He skidded to a stop in front of Touou academy, catching his breath as he stared at it. Had Aomine left already? More importantly, why was he here?

Did he really believe in the words of an impossible letter claiming to have come from the future…?

"Huh? What the—Tetsu, why are you here?"

Relief seeped into Kuroko's bones when he heard that voice. He turned around, face kept carefully blank—_not that it took much effort—_as he looked up to see Aomine. He had on a thick coat and a curious twinkle in his eye, looking as if he were about to head home. As he stared at Kuroko, a boy with a gold badge hanging off his uniform sped past Aomine, shouting a hasty goodbye, which Aomine returned.

"You here to play basketball with me or something?" Aomine asked Kuroko, a small, mischievous smile lifting his lips. It was a smile that brought warmth to Kuroko's heart, because it was so reminiscent of their middle school days.

"No. I just wanted to see you suddenly."

Aomine guffawed, choking. "What the—is that a confession?!"

"Of course not," Kuroko said flatly.

"Then why…?"

Kuroko shrugged. "Would you like to grab dinner with me?"

"Huh…" Aomine eyed Kuroko suspiciously.

"There's no trap, Aomine-kun."

With a huff, Aomine said, "Okay…" and slung his arm around Kuroko's shoulders to head off.

They fell easily into conversation, talking about nothing in particular while maintaining the air of nonchalant friendship. No matter how many times such things like this happened over the past half year, Kuroko could never get over how good it felt to talk like this.

He didn't want to imagine reverting back to estranging himself from Aomine.

_Or even losing him for good._

Kuroko shook his head. That letter wasn't true. And Kuroko guessed that now, he would never know if it _were_ true, because he was here with Aomine now, supposedly changing the future.

The sky had darkened fully now, and the street lights were beginning to flicker on. They were halfway to Maji burger. The sidewalk was sparsely populated; it was too cold to be out. Only a woman hauling a red bag and a man in a grey sweat suit walked in front of Kuroko and Aomine.

"Hey, didn't you use to go to that bookshop all the time…" Aomine was saying.

As he turned his head, a silver flash caught Kuroko's eye—

He had only caught a glimpse of it, but it was enough to make him push Aomine out of the way—

—leaving him staring at something silver sticking out of his own side.

"…huh?"

Kuroko stared at it disbelievingly, as if he couldn't understand what he was seeing. A knife in his side. Was it really a knife in his side?

"Tetsu! Oh, god, what—"

The lady with the red bag had rushed over, heels clacking against the pavement. She knelt down next to Kuroko—_when had he fallen?—_shedding her coat and shouting at Aomine to call an ambulance.

"You're going to be okay," she said, staring fiercely into Kuroko's eyes. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be fine."

Kuroko wanted to tell her that he was fine—_he wasn't really, not with the knife's blade protruding from the side of his stomach—_to tell her not to worry. But she pushed his hand aside and tried to wrap her coat around Kuroko's wound without disturbing the knife.

Her hands were turning very red—

—with what he supposed with his own blood—

"Keep looking at me. Don't close your eyes, okay?"

Her eyes were a pretty shade of hazel. But Kuroko's lids were becoming heavy.

Was he…

Dying?

There was a knife piercing through his abdomen.

Did people die from that?

He cast his mind around for a story where the protagonist might have been stabbed, but it was far too much effort… it would be so much easier to just… close his eyes.

"_Look at me,_" the lady said sharply.

Aomine had come back, ashen faced and shaking.

"Are they coming?"

"Yeah—yeah, oh god. Fuck. Christ. Tetsu, Jesus, is he going to be okay?"

"You have to stay calm, okay, stay calm for him…"

Kuroko couldn't really hear what they were saying anymore. He couldn't really feel anything either. There was something akin to scalding iron somewhere down around his stomach, but the rest of him was numb, like he'd been sitting in ice water for hours. Darkness was descending. It must be nighttime. Or early morning? Which was it? He couldn't see Aomine's face anymore. But Aomine wasn't hurt. That was good.

That's all that mattered.

It felt like he hadn't slept for days now… maybe it would be alright to… just close his eyes… just for a little bit…

A tendril of black slipped around Kuroko's conscience and whisked it away.

* * *

_What are you doing when you could be updating Sixteen?!_

_idk forgive me pls i did wrong :c _

_Based on ORANGE by Takano Ichigo about letters being sent to the past to try to change the future. This is going to be for fun (fun, she says as she writes about Kuroko being stabbed), what I'll write as I get stuck on other stories and for de-stressing purposes._


	2. a wrong step

Kuroko awoke with a gasp, shooting straight up in bed, one hand on his abdomen. He drew his fingers away, squinting at them in the light of the moon. A breath escaped his constricted throat. There was no blood. Almost in disbelief, he lifted his shirt. His skin was pale in the moonlight, and unbroken.

Had it just been a dream, then? His vision wavered, and for a split second, he could see the sliver blade emerging from his stomach, dripping red. But with a blink, it was gone.

Kuroko flopped down on his back, an arm thrown across his eyes. His fingers found his phone, which reported to him that it was January 21 and that he still had a few good hours before the birds woke and began to sing. Kuroko rolled onto his side, trying to sleep; but what an awful sensation it had been to be stabbed like that…

…though it had been but a dream…

When Kuroko next opened his eyes, it was morning.

* * *

_"__Mayuri! Mayuri, no—"_

_But the poor girl fell dead before his eyes, blood spilling out from the hole in her forehead and from the mess at the back of her head…_

_He hadn't wanted to use _that_, but he had no other choice now; he tore himself away from Mayuri's corpse and ran for the time machine. He couldn't—he refused to live in a world without her. They were going to take Mayuri away from him? He wouldn't allow it! If this was what the future dictated, then he would overwrite it._

"Kuroko!"

_He ground shook beneath his feet and his body felt like it had been duplicated and smashed in between two brick walls._

_And when he opened his eyes again, the world was bright and quiet…_

_Just the simple sound of life running through his fingertips again…_

"Hey! Kuroko! Geez, what are you reading that's gotten you so engrossed?"

With a slight shake of his head, Kuroko emerged from in between the pages, his eyes slightly unfocused.

"Kagami-kun. I apologize. This is a very interesting book, so I forgot about…"

Kuroko trailed off, staring blankly at Kagami. Kagami blinked at him owlishly as he waited for Kuroko to finish his sentence, but the boy never did, instead rising to his feet with a troubled expression on his face, as if he just remembered he'd forgotten to do something but didn't know _what._

"Kuroko?" Kagami said, reaching out a hand. With a blink, Kuroko's eyes refocused onto Kagami, still with that crease in between his eyebrows.

"You… okay?"

"It was nothing. We should go, shouldn't we? You said that Coach would make you climb Mount. Fuji ten times if you were late."

"Huh? Yeah—wait," Kagami stumbled over his words as his mind finally caught up with what Kuroko had just said. "Did I say that, really?"

Kuroko blinked.

"Didn't you?"

"I… I don't… did I…" Kagami muttered, utterly confounded. "I must have. Maybe I just forgot I'd just told you that…?"

Kuroko snorted softly. "What a Bakagami thing to do. Let's hurry, shall we?"

"Kagami!" Riko barked upon laying eyes upon the duo. "You have exactly one second to spare, so instead of making you climb Mt. Fuji ten times, you only have to do it once."

"What?! But I—"

Riko gave him a glare that told him to shut up or he would have to climb Mt. Fuji fifteen times, so he shut up.

"I don't know why this was sent to me, but it was," she said, handing a cream-colored envelope to Kuroko. "I didn't open it or anything, so rest easy. And be sure to come to the party this weekend and send us off well, you hear me?"

"Yes," Kuroko said. "Of course."

"And practice well, you two. We seniors might be busy with entrance exams and everything, but that doesn't mean the rest of you can slack off. If I return and find that you can't run a mile under five minutes—"

As Kagami babbled on uselessly about how that was impossible, Kuroko stared down at the envelope in his hands, face blank. He turned it over and ran his thumb across the postage and the handwriting addressing one _Kuroko Tetsuya_.

"Man, can you believe time went by so fast?" Kagami grumbled. "In a few months… hey, are you listening to me?"

"No," Kuroko said very frankly, causing Kagami to splutter. "I'm sorry."

Without preamble, he tore open the envelope. Inside was a single brittle letter that was turning a burnt orange around the edges, like it had been sitting out in the sun for far too long.

_To Kuroko Tetsuya—to myself of five years ago_

He didn't even bother reading the rest of it; he was already off.

* * *

"Huh? Tetsu, what are you doing here? You here to play basketball with me or something?"

For some inexplicable reason, Kuroko was unable to repress the shudder that slithered down his back. Odd; words like those would have once made him smile the smallest of smiles, instigated a flicker of warmth that would spread through his chest…

But instead, he stared into Aomine's eyes for so long that the other boy shifted uncomfortably on his feet and cleared his throat.

"Tetsu?"

Kuroko blinked.

"Would that be alright, then?" Kuroko said. "If we played basketball."

Aomine looked at him curiously. "Well… yeah, that's fine. The gym should still be unlocked. You feeling alright there, Tetsu? You look a little… or… well, you sound kind of…" Aomine pulled a face. "Man, why don't you be a little more emotive or something? Whatever I say doesn't make sense because your expression never changes and your voice never changes… Make it easier for people, can't you?"

"I am emotive. In my own way."

Aomine scoffed and tugged Kuroko into a headlock.

"What's bothering you, then?"

"See. If I were as unreadable as you say, you wouldn't be able to sense anything like that. By the way, you surprised me, Aomine-kun."

"Huh?"

Aomine had the vaguest idea that Kuroko was smiling at him mischievously.

"I didn't believe you to have such observational skill."

"What was that?!" Aomine howled after Kuroko as the boy vanished from his sight. With a soft chuckle, Kuroko ducked into the gymnasium and picked up one of the stray basketballs lying on the floor. He tossed it, and a grin spread across Aomine's face.

"One-on-one?" Aomine offered, shedding his coat.

Kuroko's only answer was a smile.

They played until almost all the lights in the school had gone out, and then some.

"I think I heard your phone ringing, by the way," Aomine said during a brief reprieve.

"Why didn't you say anything earlier, then?" Kuroko said. He made his way to the wall, where his and Aomine's things had been thrown.

"Well… you were trying so hard to beat me that I didn't have the heart to break your concentration."

The corner of Kuroko's lips lifted imperceptibly as he turned on his phone. What seemed like a million messages from Kise flooded his screen.

"Who was it?"

"Just Kise-kun."

Kuroko was about to drop the phone into his bag when it began to ring.

"Hello?"

_"__Kuroko."_

"Midorima-kun. This is a surprise."

Obviously intrigued, Aomine loped up behind Kuroko and put his ear against the phone.

"He never calls me," was his muttered justification.

_"__Kuroko."_

"Yes?"

A strange chill was beginning to claw its way up Kuroko's legs. He'd never heard Midorima speak in this tone before; it drew a cold finger of fear down his spine.

"Is there something wrong, Midorima-kun?"

He heard Midorima clear his throat several times.

_"__Kise."_

"What about Kise?"

_"__Kise is… in the hospital. He might… he may… not make it."_

Aomine jerked reflexively to catch the phone Kuroko dropped; he was left to hold the line with a silent Midorima as Kuroko dug through his bag. Aomine asked him what he was doing, but it fell upon deaf ears. A battered envelope appeared in Kuroko's hands; it was thrown away hastily for the letter inside.

_"__He… called me about twenty minutes before… asking whether I knew where Kuroko was. I did not and told him so. He said he had to go find him, and he hung up. And that was… that was only twenty minutes before…"_

Aomine's eyes traveled across the room unseeingly. His mouth was running dry. "I should have… I heard them… Tetsu got a few texts from him… I should have told him…"

"No, Aomine-kun," Kuroko said. His fingers crumpled the letter in his hand, and his eyes gleamed strangely in the gymnasium's light. "It was not your fault. It was mine."

* * *

"Steins;gate… Steins;gate…"

Midorima murmured the title like a spell as he ran his fingers over the spines of the books in the sci-fi section. It was his lucky item of the next day, that book titled _Steins;gate_. He found it odd that Oha-Asa had been so specific as to provide him with a title—it had been specific before, like an action figure of the historical figure Yamamoto (he remembered that day with a shudder; he'd been forced to break into the home of Hyuuga Junpei and steal his action figures and the repercussions had not been pretty), but never to this extent.

No matter. He would not question Oha-Asa.

"Ah."

There it was. He slipped a finger into its spine and drew it out. He'd heard of this book before; it had been popular a while ago, but he'd never bothered to read it. Maybe he would, now.

As he headed towards the cashier, something smashed into the window, cracking the pane.

"Oh, god, what was that!?" the storeowner shouted, ducking behind the cash register.

On the other side of the window was a slumped figure with stunning gold hair… Fear ran fingers down Midorima's back. Not even realizing he was still holding the book, he pushed open the door to see the commotion…

The street was dark even though it was lit by the light from the bookstore… or maybe that was simply Midorima's vision faltering as he stared down at Kise Ryouta and the knife protruding from his stomach…

But this was wrong… not twenty minutes ago, he had just spoken to Kise…

A woman with a red bag was running to them. She threw her bag down unceremoniously and dropped to her knees. She shouted at Midorima; it took him seconds to understand what she was saying. _Call an ambulance!_

A man in a grey sweat suit was already fumbling for his phone. They three were the only ones on the street. The store clerk was still cowering behind the counter. Midorima's fingers were colder than they'd ever been as he raised his phone shakily to his ear.

When the call was done, he knelt down beside Kise.

"Is there… will he…"

The woman shook her head. She'd taken off her coat to place around the wound; the knife stuck out of it strangely, like a tombstone from the top of a hill. "We can only wait now."

Kise's eyes fluttered open, a strange dizzy gold in place of their usual brightness. He seemed to see Midorima, but Midorima could not be sure, because the next moment, Kise was coughing, and blood was dribbling from the corner of his mouth, and the lights were simultaneously too bright and too dark as Midorima's vision swayed—

A hand shook him firmly by the shoulder. "Calm down."

Midorima took deep breaths.

Something cold touched him—Kise's hand. He was trying to give Midorima something. A crumpled ball of paper.

* * *

Midorima remembered this paper now as he sat in front of the surgery room, waiting for Kise to live or die. He flipped open the book, which he had unwittingly stolen from the bookstore, and found the pages between which it sat. Because he needed a distraction from this chaos, he pulled it out and began to read.

It seemed like a letter.

_To me of five years ago,_

_Jan 21. Kurokocchi will die. You have to save him, no matter what. I don't care what they say about time paradoxes. It's some complicated crap that makes my head hurt. All I know is that I have the chance to save people. So I'll take it. But only you can. Because Kurokocchi's dead right now, so of course I can't save him. This isn't making any sense to you, is it? But even if I tried to explain, you probably wouldn't get it. That's how you are. That's how I am. That's how we are._

_Because I am you, five years in the future. I'm not lying. I've got no time to explain. Kurokocchi will be at the bookstore he'd always go to. 8:30 p.m. Jan 21. Aominecchi will be there, too. Save both of them. I'm begging you. Don't let them die._

_Kise Ryouta._

Midorima sat in stunned silence for a while, reading the letter over and over again. He gripped the paper so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"That fool…" he whispered through gritted teeth. Kise could die—because of _this_? Because of a letter he believed to be true?

He crumpled the paper in his hand with fury.

It was despicable. Even though receiving a letter from the future was nigh impossible, whoever had written this had manipulated Kise well. Using Kise's friends to draw him out someplace where he could be killed—because that's all this letter was. A device to lure Kise into a trap. A trap that Kise would run straight into, because he cared more about his friends than anything in the world.

And whoever had stabbed Kise, knew this and used it.

Midorima's eyes were filled with anger when Kuroko and Aomine skidded around the corner.

"It was a trap," Midorima said coldly before they could ask him what had happened. He handed Kuroko the letter. "Whoever planned this did it well."

Kuroko stared at it, dumbfounded, as Aomine read over his shoulder. In a burst of rage, Aomine kicked over the nearest chair and slammed the palm of his hand against the wall. But Kuroko, face devoid of any emotion, pulled from his bag a wrinkled sheet of paper and held it next to Kise's.

_To myself of five years ago:_

_I am Kuroko Tetsuya. You in five years. _

_I know you will not believe me. But I cannot entertain you. There is not enough time. There is no time, five years in the future. And it is my fault. My incompetence. I am sorry._

_January 21, 8:30 p.m. I don't know what happened. Everything is so messed up. I was supposed to be at the bookstore with Aomine-kun, but on that day, I received a letter that told me Aomine-kun was in danger. So I stayed with Aomine-kun._

_But I think… I think I was supposed to be the one to be stabbed. Not Kise-kun. He was looking for me while I was playing basketball with Aomine-kun. He took the fall. And now he's dead._

_So I beg of you, believe me. Trust me._

His hands shook as sank to the bench, blood too cold to even flow through his veins. His mind wheeled as a broken pinwheel might in the wildest of winds; unable to comprehend what was happening, he could only stare blankly at the papers in his hands.

His fingers ran over a ridge on the back of Kise's letter. He turned it over and saw that part of the paper was peeling—no, that wasn't quite right. It was a sheet stuck to the back. He peeled it off, but his fingers shook such that they fumbled, and the paper fluttered to the ground.

Kuroko was barely breathing as he bent down to pick it up. His fingers shook as he turned it over and smoothed it out. The ink was beginning to fade. The paper looked years old.

And when he read it, it was like something from an ancient dream…

_To Kuroko Tetsuya,_

_To myself of five years ago._

_I do not have enough time. I hope you receive it on this day, February 20. If not, I apologize. It is my incompetence. I am sorry. I am sorry for many things. I do not have enough time._

_My name is Kuroko Tetsuya._

_I am you, five years into the future._

"But this is…" Kuroko breathed, disbelieving. "This is the letter from my… from my dream. Why does Kise-kun have it?"

* * *

Akashi Seijuuro's eyes and hair seemed like flaming crimson against the black of his clothes. It was like he was taking place of the sunset that was being obscured by the grey clouds overhead. Footsteps approached; he looked up and saw Aomine, who looked out of place in his own clothes.

Black, formal, and solemn.

"So you all came," Aomine said gruffly in greeting. He sat down beside Akashi.

"Of course. But you came late."

Aomine tried to laugh, but it was a miserable one.

"Well, I wasn't looking forward to it."

One drop of rain fell from the sky. It landed heavily, spraying out across the medley of flowers arranged on the ground. The petals were robust and of all colors of the rainbow; it almost felt like they didn't belong on a day like this. Akashi brushed a finger along the flowers.

"He was foolish for believing such a letter," he said quietly. "A fool and then some."

"I know."

"And he paid the price for it. But an unjust price it was. For bravery and care for his friends, he received death."

The softness of Akashi's voice did not fool Aomine. He knew that the more controlled Akashi seemed, the more emotions stirred underneath. He was angry. And like a fire that burned all in its path, Akashi would not stop until he saw the end of this—_or unless he was killed—_

"I'll follow you," Aomine said. He didn't look at Akashi, but saw from the corner of his eyes that Akashi had turned his head. "I'll do whatever it takes to catch whoever did this."

And at that moment, he meant it. He felt a hollowness in his stomach that he knew would never be sated by food; a hollowness that had dried all the tears he might have shed for Kise Ryouta, the boy who now lay feet below the surface of the ground. His fists clenched at the thought of it, and the pit in his chest howled.

He heard Akashi chuckle lightly, and that laugh of his made him glad that he was not Akashi's enemy. Aomine had never faced Akashi off the court, but he somehow got the sense that, in the real world, Akashi was much more dangerous than Aomine knew.

"Why not leave it to the police?" Akashi said. They both knew this question was only pretense, a useless proposal that no one would even consider.

Aomine looked Akashi in the eyes, a cold gaze that entertained no humor.

"I wouldn't be satisfied."

* * *

But even returning from the farewells to the dead, there was no peace.

Kuroko walked slowly, weighed down by the three letters he had in his pocket. Each step he took whispered to him of death, of how Kise's death was his fault, of how if he had been more careful and read the letter entirely, this would not have happened…

He never noticed the shadow that stalked him.

And when he turned the corner—

He was grabbed from behind—

And before he could make a single noise, a knife slipped in between his ribs, and he stumbled into darkness.

When he awoke, he woke with a gasp, sitting straight up in bed as if electrified. His fingers scrambled for his chest, and he did not breathe until he felt that there was nothing wrong with him.

He fumbled with his phone until he finally managed to turn it on.

It was January 20, 11:59 p.m.

* * *

_Forgot to mention it last time, but now nobody should miss it, lol, since I basically wrote it into the story: The book Kuroko was reading is indeed Steins;gate. I'm not actually sure if there's a novel for it; my understanding is that the anime (amazing, by the way, though I haven't finished it yet) was based on a game/visual novel? Anyways, that's my second inspiration for this story. _

_Thanks for the support, everyone! If it's not too much trouble, tell me what you think :)_


	3. a bitter taste

Aomine Daiki didn't believe in time travel.

Ghosts, maybe. Aliens, definitely. But time travel?

Hah. Go try fooling someone else.

So he dumped the letter he'd received that morning in the trash without a second thought.

"Man, get a life," he scoffed. He slipped on his shoes, called out a half-hearted "I'm going," to no one in particular, and loped out his house.

What kind of fool would he have to be to listen to a letter that claimed to be from the future? From _himself_, of all people, five years into the future? Christ, he might be an idiot, but he wasn't _that_ much of an idiot…

For idiocy on that level, the prankster should go to Kise.

Or Kuroko.

Aomine frowned. He had a feeling that Kuroko would be susceptible to these sorts of jokes. He cared about people too much.

It brought a grumble from the back of Aomine's throat and caused his feet to stop on the sidewalk. What did that say about _Aomine_, then? That he didn't care about his friends enough? Should he be worrying over this letter like Kise and Kuroko might (and probably even Midorima, although he would hide it very well)? Was he a bad person for not? Was Mai-chan going to hop out of the magazine and punish him for being a bad boy?

He smirked.

He wouldn't mind _that_ so much.

"Aomine-kun!"

"Huh?"

Who was calling him so early in the morning? He didn't have any friends to speak of at Touou, and his teammates didn't really bother coming to walk with him to school in the mornings. He turned around, feeling a vein pop in his head when he didn't see anybody. He'd had enough pranks for the morning. Any more, and he'd be angry.

"Aomine-kun."

"Tetsu, appear _normally_ for once in your goddamn life!" Aomine said after he'd disentangled himself from the neighbor's fence. Kuroko blinked at him vacantly, as he was apt to do.

"That was normally. I even called out to you and everything."

"But _appear_," Aomine tried to explain. "Like, _be seen_, or something, jeez. Wait a second… shouldn't you… be at school?"

"There's no school today, Aomine-kun," Kuroko said. "It's Sunday."

Aomine's eye twitched furiously. He whipped out his phone and shoved it in Kuroko's face, knowing that it read _Thursday, January 21._

"Say that again?"

Kuroko waved the phone away.

"It's lying. Your phone is a defect."

Aomine threw up his hands in exasperation.

"Great. Don't tell me you were the one who sent me that letter, too."

"What letter?"

Aomine was taken aback by the sharp edge in Kuroko's voice.

"…Nothing. C'mon, you should start running back to Seirin, or you'll be late."

He made to start walking, but Kuroko darted in front of him, looking defiant.

"What letter?" he repeated. Aomine grated out a sigh of defeat and held up his hands.

"C'mon, really? It's no big deal. Some punk decided to pretend to be me from the future, wrote me a crap letter, stuck it in my mailbox, and sat back to watch the show. Too bad for him, I wasn't—h-hey! Tetsu! That's called breaking and entering!"

"Not if the door is unlocked."

"Wha—Argh!"

Aomine leaped over the fence and ran after Kuroko, who was already long gone.

"Tetsu!" Aomine called.

When he finally found Kuroko, the boy was in his room, kneeling down next to the trashcan with his nose buried in the letter Aomine had received that morning. Aomine raised his eyes to the sky. He should have known. Kuroko had always been a sucker for adventure and mystery, and a letter 'from the future' was probably right up his alley.

"It's not real," Aomine said, flinging his bag to the floor and flopping onto his bed (because missing another day of school wouldn't really hurt anyways).

But instead of agreeing or saying some quip, Kuroko said softly, "I hope it isn't."

"Huh?"

Aomine sat up straight and stared at Kuroko.

"You tellin' me you believe this bull?"

Kuroko shrugged. "I don't know what to believe anymore. I received a letter very much like yours this morning."

"Oh, come on," Aomine groaned.

"It's very similar to yours," Kuroko repeated quietly. "Although it seems that in my letter, you will be the one to die rather than… what your letter says."

Kuroko looked down at the letter.

_Aomine Daiki,_

_I am you. Five years into the future. I'm writing this stupid letter because I need you to stop everyone from dying. _

_I tried. I was powerless. I—we—became a policeman for the sake of catching those who killed our friends. At first it was just Kise and Tetsu. Then Murasakibara. Midorima. Until finally, it was just me, Akashi, and Kagami. Until yesterday. Kagami killed himself for me. The idiot. He wasn't supposed to have any part in this. Fuck fuck FUCK _

_I was never one to believe in time travel. Look at me now. The measures I'm taking. Making myself look like an idiot for a letter that might not work. But it has to. _

_Jan 21. That was the day it all began. Go to the bookstore Tetsu always went to. Keep your eyes peeled. Something will happen. What, I don't know. Because if this reaches you, you'll be changing the past. My past. Your future. Our lives. Someone will try to kill you or whoever else might be there at the time. Don't let it happen. _

_Aomine Daiki_

* * *

"Remind me again why I'm doing this…"

In front of Kaijo high, Aomine Daiki twiddled his thumbs, waiting. A few minutes ago, Kuroko had sent a text to a very irritating blond boy, who still had yet to surface—which was surprising. Aomine had expected Kise to materialize to throw himself on Kuroko the very second Kuroko had pressed the send button.

Well, he wasn't too disappointed. The next moment, Kise was running out the entrance doors, arms outstretched.

"Kurokocchi!" he cried. "Wow, this is amazing! You texted me first! Wow, I'm so happy!"

Kuroko seemed to be doing his best to look unaffected by the way Kise was rubbing his cheek on the top of his head.

"Yes," Kuroko replied. "I've come to ask you a favor."

"Huh? What is it?"

"Skip practice and come with us."

"Us—huh, Aominecchi, how long have you been there?"

"Wha—Have I become the new Tetsu?"

"That's rude."

"Enough," Aomine said exasperatedly before Kise could open his loud mouth again. "Tetsu is an idiot and wants to go to a bookstore because a letter told him to. Or, told me to. Because his letter didn't."

Kise laughed. Aomine suddenly got the feeling that he wasn't going to like what would be coming out of Kise's mouth next.

"Well, you guys saved me a lot of trouble," Kise said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. Aomine groaned. He was witnessing the birth of the idiot duo, and he supposed he was third wheeling on this madness.

"I was going to go find Kurokocchi myself… and now here he is! It must be fate!"

"Let me guess," Aomine sighed. "Your letter says that someone's going to die in front of the bookstore Tetsu always goes to on January 21."

Kise looked shocked.

"A-Aominecchi… are you a psychic?!"

Aomine just threw up his hands and started walking away as Kuroko stealthily removed the letter from Kise's hand.

"I'm not even going to bother to fight against you two," he called over his shoulder. "Come on, let's go already."

* * *

"Jeez, that fool! First he barges into my home past midnight and then he skips school and practice?"

Kagami gulped and made way for Riko as she paced furiously back and forth. She suddenly whipped her finger into Kagami's face. He whimpered.

"The next time you see him, you tell him that I will _get_ him for this," she hissed into his sweaty face. "Understood?"

Kagami nodded as if his life depended on it. Riko removed her finger from the tip of his nose, and he finally breathed again.

"But Coach… if I could ask… why do you need Kuroko?"

Riko sighed and waved a hand at Kagami. "After he so rudely woke me from my maiden's sleep last night, he asked if I had received a letter for him by mistake. But after reading it, the idiot left it in my house… Speaking of which, Kagami-kun," Riko said with a sweet smile. "You can do me a favor and deliver it back to Kuroko-kun. I don't want to see his face."

"Y-Yes!" Kagami agreed under the pressure of Riko's expression of _refuse and die._

As Riko walked away, Kagami knew that he should respect privacy and all, but this was really too intriguing. What was in this letter that Kuroko would go out of his way and bother Riko in the middle of the night? Kuroko was always polite, and to make such an intrusion…

Kagami _giggled_. Maybe a love letter? He could read it over the intercom when Kuroko came back, watch his expression finally change from flat to mortified…

A mortified Kuroko… he liked that idea… it was time for payback for all those times Kuroko had shoved Nigou in Kagami's face…

He opened the envelope and drew out the letter.

* * *

"Huh? What the… Midorima, why are you here?"

Midorima turned from the bookshelf, disgruntled at the sight of three old teammates sitting at a round table behind him beside the window.

"I could ask the same of you," he said stiffly. "I have business here. My lucky item."

He held up a book Kuroko recognized as Steins;gate. Aomine explained to Midorima in words that essentially summed up to:_ Tetsu. Kise. Idiots. _ Seemingly satisfied by this scant explanation, Midorima sniffed a little before walking to the cashier. Kuroko turned his eyes away from his old teammate, scouring the streets outside for anything that might be a clue to this entire strange phenomenon.

His phone was resting on the tabletop, obsessively kept on by his restless finger. It was almost 8:30. A lady carrying a red bag was passing the store. A man in a grey sweat suit was just beginning to kneel down beside the window to tie his shoe when, from the cashier, came a noise like splintering glass.

"I'm sorry!" the storeowner cried, trying to shoo Midorima away from the broken glass. Kuroko half rose to his feet along with Aomine and Kise, should there arise a need for help—

_"Call an ambulance!"_

And with a sinking feeling, Kuroko realized that he had taken his eyes off the streets at exactly the wrong moment. But it didn't make any sense; all the people who had died in his 'dreams' were currently inside the bookstore; the rest of those mentioned in Aomine's letter were too far away from the Tokyo area—

So who…?

He darted outside, where he saw a lady throw aside her red bag to kneel down next to a boy with dark red hair…

"Kagami-kun!"

The lady glanced up for a split second, and as he locked gazes with her hazel eyes, his heart jumped into his mouth. He'd seen those eyes before, had stared into them what seemed like thousands of years ago… but where? But before his heart had even settled back into his chest, the woman's eyes flew back to Kagami, who looked to be barely breathing.

"I-I called!"

The man in the grey sweat suit appeared behind Kuroko, his cellphone almost slipping out of his hand because of his sweat. Aomine, Kise, and Midorima had finally gathered around, looking stunned—Aomine most of all. It wasn't surprising, considering what he knew and how skeptical he had been.

But now wasn't the time to mourn; Kagami wasn't dead yet, and there was something more important Kuroko had to do—

He leaped to his feet and spun on his heels, looking around him. But the streets were empty save for the lady with the red bag, the man in the grey sweat suit, and the other three. But there should have been _someone_ else, one other person here, the one who had held the knife…

_"_Don't close your eyes. _Look at me."_

Kuroko's eyes had just landed on the lady's red bag when the ambulance arrived with a piercing wail and flashing lights.

* * *

One month later, Kuroko was sitting at the kitchen table.

He sat quietly, with his hands in his lap, just thinking. The rims of his eyes were red, and he was clad entirely in black. The blinds of his house were drawn even though the painter of the sky had yet to douse the horizon with dusky colors.

On one side of the table lay his cellphone.

On the other lay a knife.

He sat there, waiting.

And then it came—

The phone call.

He took up the phone, leaving the knife to lie in solitude.

"Good evening, Akashi-kun," Kuroko said quietly.

_"Tetsuya. What is the meaning of this?"_

"I take it the letters arrived safely, then?" Kuroko said.

_"Explain, Tetsuya."_

Kuroko was silent for a moment.

"What do you think?"

Akashi, too, was quiet, as if he wanted to berate Kuroko for not answering his questions. But with a sigh, as if entertaining a child, he began to speak.

_"There are two options. One: Whoever wrote these wrote them with the aim of luring the receiver out to a vulnerable spot. However, I am not sure. None of these is addressed to Kagami Taiga, and yet he went out to the bookstore that day."_

"Kagami was supposed to deliver my letter to me," Kuroko said lowly. "I left it at Riko-san's house. It was my mistake."

_"Then, Kagami Taiga was collateral damage."_

"Don't say it like that, please."

_"…My apologies."_

"Then the second?"

Akashi was silent.

_"That the sender is telling the truth, and these did come from the future in a desperate bid to stop Ryouta's and your deaths."_

"But they failed," Kuroko said.

_"Indeed, Kagami, Ryouta, and Daiki are all… dead, now, but you still remain alive. So if these are in fact from the future, I would not say it was a complete failure."_

A smile ghosted across Kuroko's face.

"Do you think they are real, Akashi-kun?"

_"No. Time travel does not exist, Tetsuya."_

Kuroko chuckled at that.

"I believe it does, Akashi-kun. I think they are real."

Before Akashi could voice disapproval, Kuroko continued.

"I had a dream, Akashi-kun. It was a strange dream in which I dreamed. In that dream, on the twenty-first of January, Riko-san sent Kagami to relay the message that she had received a letter addressed to me. I went to retrieve the letter, and it told me that Aomine-kun would be stabbed in the spine and paralyzed from the waist down. You hold that letter now, Akashi-kun.

"I awoke from that dream, into the next, and was taken by a strange feeling and went to see Aomine-kun. We played basketball until the evening, and then walked to my favorite bookstore. And then, in that dream, I was stabbed. I died. And when I woke up, I was back in bed."

_"Tetsuya—"_

"I'm not done, Akashi-kun," Kuroko cut in. He could tell Akashi was taken aback; Kuroko wasn't one to interrupt people. But this was important. The knife gleamed at him, like the Cheshire cat's grin in the darkest of nights.

"When I woke up into the final dream, it was still January twenty-first. Riko-san sent Kagami again. I got the letter again. I didn't read it this time; instead, I ran straight to Touou and kept Aomine-kun occupied the entire afternoon. But then, around 8:30 p.m., Midorima called. Kise had been stabbed, and it was because he had followed the instructions of a letter he received that claimed to be from himself, five years into the future.

"On the back of that letter was the original letter I'd received in my first dream. Word for word, Akashi-kun. You hold that letter along with the one I received that day.

"I was walking home from Kise-kun's funeral several days later when I was attacked from behind. I presume I died. And when I woke up to reality, it was the twentieth of January, 11:59 p.m.

"That was the day Kagami-kun died. One month ago."

_"Tetsuya…"_ Akashi said, a note of warning in his voice.

"Also in your possession," Kuroko continued, "are the letters Aomine-kun and Kise-kun received that day. That is all the proof I can give you. They are why I believe all of this to be real. They are why I entrusted them to you, Akashi-kun, so that one day, five years into the future, you might send one back to the time of one month ago. Earlier, if you can."

_"What are you planning?"_

Kuroko smiled because he knew that Akashi had already guessed his next action.

"Every time I die," Kuroko said, and his voice was the shadow of a whisper. "I seem to return to my past self."

A rush of adrenaline filled his veins and roared in his ears.

"So I guess this is goodbye, Akashi-kun."

Maybe Akashi shouted over the phone; Kuroko didn't know. He had dropped it to the floor with a loud clatter that drowned out whatever Akashi might have been saying.

He'd thought about this a lot over the past month. About what he might have been able to do had he done this or that—but speculating on the past was worth nothing when it had already flown by.

This was his best bet. And if it failed—well, he was sorry for putting the burden on Akashi's shoulders. But he couldn't live with himself like this.

He picked up the knife.

* * *

"You were the last one, Shintarou. I am sorry to see you go."

Time revealed an older Akashi, though one who was not even halfway through his prime. His eyes had grown darker; those who whispered in the background said it was from grief; others, from anger. He himself no longer knew what it was that had caused the shadow to grow on his face. He only knew that time dragged on in the worst of places and flew by in the best. He was tired, now.

But it wasn't quite time for him to rest.

He chuckled and raised his face to the sky.

"You always had a selfish streak in you, Tetsuya. Doing whatever you liked, whatever you thought was right. Perhaps you thought I would handle the wait better than you. Do a better job of protecting everyone. But I do not know how to protect. I know only how to win. And, Tetsuya…"

He closed his eyes.

"I have only had losses. Atsushi, Satsuki, and finally Shintarou have all died. We know no more about our aggressors than we do five years ago. Even the battle against pain I have lost. It hurts much more than I had anticipated. All I have succeeded in doing is writing this letter to myself."

More than five years had passed since Kuroko had taken his life. Akashi was the last one standing; he knew that he was the final target. And yet, to his frustration, after all these years, he still had not discovered the one who had hunted them down like rabbits…

But the one thing he'd found out was the lore of the hopeful…

That on this day, at this time, if you tried to send something into the past, it would succeed…

A story, it seemed, that the others hadn't figured out until it was almost too late. It explained the rushed quality of the letters.

As he stood in front of Midorima's freshly dug grave, he heard a branch snap behind him.

Never before had Akashi run from something in his life, and he wouldn't start now. But there was a gun to his back, preventing him from turning around and facing his death face on. He laughed internally. So this was how it was going to end? With him never knowing the face of his killers, never revealing the identity of the murderers who had killed his closest comrades; never giving more than vague suspicions to the ones still alive in the past?

Overhead, a dark shadow bit into the blinding sun.

"After five long years, this play finally comes to a close, I see," Akashi said. He held the letters—old and freshly written—to his chest, the closest to a prayer he had ever come to in his life. "After five long years, the hunt ends."

"Why did you make it so easy for us to find you?"

A voice that he could not determine as a man or woman's. Bitterness stabbed him again. He would know nothing in his death.

"I thought I could keep a few of the others alive, but when it became apparent that this was merely a naïve fantasy, I grew sentimental," Akashi said. "Five years Atsushi, Shintaro, Satsuki, and I have scoured Japan for you; five years and all we accrued were shadows of suspicions. Death wears on the soul, no matter how strong, and it seems that my soul is no exception."

Akashi closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. The May wind tingled in his lungs, smelling of life and new pleasures.

"While capturing you would have had its rewards, I did not see a purpose to living afterwards. Such were the bonds we had with each other," Akashi said, almost amused with himself and how deteriorated his inner will had become over the course of five years of death. "Such were the bonds I did not realize had dragged me down.

"Revenge would be sweet," Akashi sighed. "But there is no time anymore."

The one standing behind him said nothing. Akashi felt the sunlight fading away. The eclipse had nearly reached its zenith—

He opened his eyes to the sky, and, blinded by the sight of a ring of blazing light, he almost did not feel the bullet enter his body—

When he landed, the hand holding the letters was positioned in front of his face. He knew there should be blood on them, but there was nothing. He watched the letters he'd written the day before turn from white…

To tan…

To a burnt orange…

The taste of defeat was bitter on his tongue as he drew his last breaths, but there was no fight in him anymore.

* * *

_Thanks for reading and commenting, guys. To show my love, I wrote this chapter, which is the last one where Kuroko is stuck in this loop. Is that a spoiler? Of course not. Now I will go back to studying so I don't fail all my classes. Which seems to be a valid possibility at the moment. _


	4. sacrifice

Akashi didn't know what he was expecting when he woke up the morning of January 21, but it certainly wasn't to the sight of a letter taped to his ceiling.

If anyone came in, they would certainly ask him what he was doing standing on tiptoes on his bed with his fingertips scraping the ceiling. It was quite unbecoming for the Akashi heir, and he could feel a tight displeasure winding its way on his face when his fingers barely clipped the envelope.

He was simply.

Too short.

"Aka-chin, you ran out of—Aka-chin, what are you doing?"

Akashi quickly brought his arms down and turned to stare at Murasakibara Atsushi, his previous teammate who had come to visit for the weekend and had yet to leave, with a flat, threatening glare. He would not breathe a single word of this. To _anyone._ Murasakibara shrugged like it wasn't any of his business, and Akashi was glad that this giant friend of his was so nonchalant and thought teasing was too much of a bother.

"Will you get it for me?"

Akashi indicated the envelope taped to the ceiling. Murasakibara snatched it from its place like it was nothing, and Akashi suppressed the desire to pluck all the purple hair from Murasakibara's head.

"Thank you," he said, and not a little frigidly. Murasakibara didn't seem to notice and just handed off the letter carelessly. With a clatter, it fell to the ground—which wasn't right. Paper didn't fall that heavily.

As Murasakibara ransacked Akashi's personal store of snacks, Akashi slit open the envelope. Out fell a key and a small note—_Taiyou Station. Locker 398. _Curiously, Akashi turned the paper over in his hands, but there was nothing more to see.

"What's wrong?" Murasakibara said as he struggled to open a jar of pickles. Never mind why Akashi kept a jar of pickles in his room; food was food.

"Atsushi," Akashi said. "Would you like to go on a trip with me?"

"Not particularly. But if I say no, you'll make things troublesome for me, so I guess I would."

Akashi smiled perfunctorily.

The ride to the train station was quiet. His chauffer didn't ask why he was skipping school—he would give that man a bonus—just dropped him off at the muted station and waited patiently. Taiyou Station wasn't a big or busy place; hardly anyone boarded these trains ever since the new system opened up. It was old-fashioned and outdated—something Akashi could appreciate.

Murasakibara trotted after him faithfully as Akashi searched out locker 398—and there it was. High above his head, out of reach.

It would be a lie to say that Akashi was not feeling a little spiteful as, for the second time that day, Murasakibara achieved something that was out of Akashi's control.

"Fanmail? Love confessions?" Murasakibara asked as he languidly dumped a pile of letters onto Akashi's head. "Oops, sorry Aka-chin. Wasn't watching."

"…it is not an issue," Akashi said. He tore into the letters with a little more venom than he might have had the world not woken him today just to poke fun at his height.

But his spite was washed away by waves of vague confusion letter after letter. They weren't directed to him—no, there were some addressed to Kise, Murasakibara, Midorima and the others. Just a motley of letters not meant for him and speaking of time-traveling rubbish—

Ah, no—there was one letter for Akashi himself. With increasingly incredulity, he scanned it.

_Akashi Seijuuro,_

_Skeptical though you may be, I assure you this is no prank. Of course, it is up to you to determine the validity of this statement; I have no power over what the me of five years ago will believe. _

_Yes, I am you, five years into the future. Never had I believed that I would ever write something so ludicrous as this, but here I am—here you are, here we are, standing on a precipice between life and death. _

_I ask of you a favor. _

_Likely, in a few days, or a few hours, or even in a few years, there will come a time when you become familiar with mortality, just as I have. I do not wish this upon you or anyone else, but it is an immutable future for me and you until the loop is broken. _

_What is this loop, you may ask? In return, I request that you open your mind and accept all that I say as truth. Knowing my own personality, this may be difficult for you—but it is necessary. I have grown to know, over the years, over my many losses, that easily dismissing inconceivable ideas will lead to the unbelievable pain that accompanies bereavement._

"What an excessively talkative being this person who claims to be me is," Akashi said. He turned the letter over and, to his displeasure, saw that it continued all the way to the very edge of the back page.

_Most likely, today is January 21, the day it all began. The day your friends started being murdered one by one. It was Tetsuya first. Then Ryota, Daiki, Atsushi, and finally Shintarou. And myself, I suppose. But it wasn't only once. Or, it would be more accurate to say, it wasn't in only _one world_. _

_What do I mean by this?_

_It sums up to this: Kuroko has a strange ability. With every death, he is transferred between parallel worlds. He would be thrust into January 21 again and again with the memories of the previous world, but nobody else would remember. Each time, a new letter would come, sometimes only to him, sometimes to others, but every time foretelling a death. _

_And every January 21, someone would inevitably die. And so the dominoes would begin their fall._

_I would not have believed it if I were not the last one alive now myself. Yes, Kuroko and the rest are gone now, and here I sit alone, writing._

_At first, he thought it was a simple time-travel. We all did, but I have realized that it isn't so. What Kuroko does is travel between universes—between parallel worlds. Once something is done in one world, it cannot be undone. So in my case, even if something changes in your time, on your January 21, nothing will change for me. Tetsuya will go on being dead; I will most likely die; and such will be the case in all worlds where this has happened._

_So what is the point?_

_There is a pivotal moment, it can be said, where the balance shifts enough such that a new parallel world is born, a new branch, so to say._

_On one branch is a world where event A has happened; on the other branch is a world where event A has not happened. In our case, we can say that event A is the death of someone belonging to the Generation of Miracles. In our case, we can say that there is yet no branch where event A has not happened. _

_This is the point of this letter. To create a divide in the worlds and finally force into existence a branch where event A does not occur. _

_Regrettably, I have no information to give you about our aggressors, what they look or sound like, what their motive is. I only have information about the one death that stays constant no matter into which world Tetsuya ventures: January 21, 8:30 p.m., a certain bookstore Tetsuya often frequented._

_Now comes my request. By the time you receive this letter, it will already have been too late for you to change anything, I believe. So instead, prepare to sacrifice this world. Throw it away from your mind, have no hopes or expectations. Gather all the letters that have been collected in this world and send them on the day of the eclipse, which will come in five years, to yourself of five years ago. Do this, and we may have a chance—no, we may give a chance to the you of a different world._

_My deepest condolences,  
Akashi Seijuuro_

Akashi was left speechless. He turned the letter over and over in his hands, which was apparently so concerning that Murasakibara had to shake him a little to break him from his trance. He looked up, a little disoriented, barely seeing what was in front of him, questioning everything in his mind.

Just what on earth had he read?

An elaborate ruse?

A desperate plea?

A hopeless command?

"What," Murasakibara said, "is wrong with you, Aka-chin?"

Akashi answered, plain as day, "I don't know."

Murasakibara even forgot he was holding a bag of chips.

Akashi checked the time. It was almost noon. He had eight hours to get to the rest of them on the other side of Japan.

"Atsushi, would you like to make a trip with me?"

Murasakibara shrugged.

"Not really. But saying no will make you make life difficult for me, so, yeah. I guess I would."

Akashi smiled ruefully and hailed down his chauffer. He stuffed all the letters into the back seat and prepared himself for the long drive.

* * *

By the time Akashi arrived, it seemed that the rest of them had already been briefed on the situation. Though their faces were all nonchalance and chilly serenity, he could tell they were nervous. Of course they would be. Akashi smiled dryly.

They were standing on the precipice between life and death.

"It's this bookstore, is it not?" he said. The bell on the door rang as they piled inside, taking watch beside the window looking out onto the street. Lit only by a single lamp, it was hard to see.

"I've told everyone to stay away from this area," Kuroko said quietly. "I don't want anyone else to get caught up in this accidentally. But you said you had something to tell us, Akashi?"

"Indeed."

He turned to the circle, poised to speak. They had thirty minutes before the promised time.

"I believe most of you understand the situation from Tetsuya. I'll presume he told you of the memories he harbors of many deaths that came to him like dreams."

When they all nodded, he continued.

"Dreams that were not dreams, but memories from parallel worlds."

He explained to them the letter he'd gotten from himself of the 'future'—two parallel worlds away. Kise stopped him, thoroughly confounded.

"I'm not understanding," he said. "What do you mean 'two parallel worlds away'? Isn't this just a letter from you—five years in the future?"

"No," Akashi said patiently. "It's not. Say there are three worlds: A, B, and C. Akashi of world A sent this letter to Akashi of world B, who then gathered all these letters and sent them to me, Akashi of world C. Notably missing is a letter addressed to the me of this world specifically, as if it were my sole duty to scour each of these letters for some hint."

"And?" Kagami said impatiently. "Stop using so many words and get to the point."

Akashi raised his chin, but obliged. Ten minutes had passed already.

"Atsushi and I went through all these letters, and there was one thing that stood out from the rest: a single person. This person was not present in all the letters, but she was mentioned in about half the letters Tetsuya sent back to himself. She wears a red bag and is always helping him when he is the first to die, right outside this bookstore."

"I remember her," Kuroko confirmed quietly. "Especially from the last world, I remember her."

"Hold on," Aomine said. "If Tetsu has all the memories from every parallel world, how come he only remembers a handful? These letters—there are enough letters to be from a hundred worlds."

"Perhaps this Tetsuya is one who's only traveled through a few," Akashi speculated. "For instance, he may have begun at world F and traveled on to world J, whereas other versions of himself began from world A and ended up all the way at world Z. I believe these are just semantics and not worth hashing."

He punctuated this with a poignant look at the clock. 8:20 p.m.

"We have but one purpose here," he said. "To make sure nobody dies."

"But it's sad to think about," Kise said. "About what you said about the parallel worlds. Maybe nobody will die here, in our world, but the people who've already died in other worlds will just continue on being—well, dead. The me of some other timeline might be alone. The Kurokocchi of somewhere else might be dying right now. And we can't do anything about that. Isn't that kind of… unfair?"

"What we do will birth a line where nobody will die. Yes," Akashi said, and it was not without a little bitterness, as if he'd thought long and hard about this himself, "there will be an entire other branch where we will continue experiencing death, but at least we can be the ones who break off from that fate. And that will be worth it, won't it, Ryota?"

Kise looked relatively unconvinced, but he nodded nonetheless.

"So—so we just stay here, right?" Kagami said uneasily, tapping his fingers against his knees. "We'll just stay here until 8:30 passes, and then we can go home because we've made this—this branch—I don't really understand it still, but we'll have changed the future in simpler terms, right?"

"Hypothetically speaking, yes," said Midorima. He looked dubious, and justly so.

There were only a few pedestrians, and none with a red bag—not that they knew entirely what they were looking for. From what Kuroko had explained, the lady in the red bag had always arrived after he had been stabbed, always there to help and calm whoever else present down.

Time tip-toed by excruciatingly slowly.

Second after second, too slow to bear, until—

"Wait—where's Kuroko? _Where's Kuroko?"_

Kagami leaped to his feet, followed by Aomine, and chairs clattered to the ground as panic began to settle around their ears. Kuroko was nowhere to be found, and it was _already 8:29 p.m.—_

When Akashi had shown up with all those letters in his hand, when he had told them what he knew about these presumed parallel worlds and how it was necessary for them to create a timeline in which nobody died, a new idea had hatched in Kuroko's mind, based on the whisper of the worlds he'd come from.

He knew this was the only way to truly create a timeline where nobody would have to die.

So what if they prevented their 'event A' from happening? That was just making sure nobody would die on this day—January 21. There was nothing being said about the future, nothing being said about preventing anybody dying a day or a year or a decade from now. Whoever was targeting them had a grudge; that much was clear from the letters Akashi carried. It was only ever the Generation of Miracles that was hunted, never anybody from Seirin, with the exception of Kagami's one recorded death, or Touou, Rakuzan or Yousen. They wouldn't stop just because they couldn't kill anybody January 21. The only way to impede their goal was to do _this—_

He slipped out, invisible, out of the bookshop and into the street. He stood ten feet from the window, but he was confident that they would not see him until it was too late. He knew what he had to do, and he was going to do it.

_This was the only way._

The lady with the red bag passed him by, and not long after was a man in a grey sweat suit.

_The only way to truly create a timeline where nobody would have to die would be to sacrifice himself—and potentially this entire world—in order to identify the culprit. _

He pinned his eyes on the red bag, feeling his heart battering itself against his ribcage, shouting at him to _please don't do this._ He had to ignore it. He wanted to end this for good. With this one last death, it _would be over._

There was a flash of silver, and, as if time had slowed for him, he saw the knife careen towards him.

He didn't try to avoid it.

After all, he had to die.

This was all very vaguely familiar…

Staring down at the blade protruding from his side…

Seeing the blood spill out from between his fingers…

Falling to his knees, a little shell-shocked though he had been expecting this excruciating pain.

People were yelling at him, yelling his name, yelling _why_, yelling _no,_ yelling _please!_

He was sorry, but it had to be done.

The lady with the red bag was pushing her way through them, telling them to please stay calm and to avoid touching him. Through a haze, her eyes reached him, a dark hazel set with determination as she shed her coat and wrapped it around the knife in his stomach.

"Stay awake," she told him fiercely. "Don't close your eyes."

Something warm was travelling up his esophagus, and it burst out through his mouth, a bubble of blood that dribbled down his chin. It would be so easy to… close his eyes…

The woman with the red bag grabbed his face.

"Look at me," she ordered.

Kuroko almost felt like chuckling, the pain was making him delirious. He was waiting for her to say it, waiting for her to say those words—

His phone was tucked just underneath his scarf, and he did very much hope that it hadn't turned off somehow in the pandemonium.

The woman leaned forward so that her breath brushed Kuroko's ears as she breathed:

_"Look at me. Let me watch you die."_

At this rate, help would arrive before Kuroko's life slipped from his lips. He struggled to sit up and motioned to Akashi, who swooped down, face paler than the snow that was beginning to dust the ground.

It was hard, so hard to fight back the darkness crawling into the edges of his vision, but he begged it to spare him for just one minute more…

In a death grip, he grabbed Akashi's arm and shoved it against his scarf, underneath which was his phone. He saw Akashi's eyes widen, and when the hand drew back, Kuroko could see the phone locked securely within his fingers.

"D-Don't," he gasped out, blood spraying from his lips. He could hear Kise crying, dimly, like he was a million miles away. "Don't think too—badly of… me."

Before anybody could react, Kuroko used the rest of his strength to clutch with shaking fingers the hilt of the blade in his body—

—and pull—

As the blade exited his body, blood trailed after it like lovers being separated…

And with a finality, darkness swooped into him.

* * *

_A little shoddily put together, but I really want to finish this and not have it hanging over my head. Next chapter will be the last!_

_Hopefully, things weren't too confusing. I provided a picture (which is probably not very much help) on my tumblr, which can be found on my profile, or at atunnelofdreams. The last scene is confusing, but it will all be revealed next chapter what Kuroko was doing with his phone tucked in his scarf, more details on why he pretty much killed himself, and what will become of the world he just left._

_I apologize if I never responded to your review; it's been so long that I've forgotten whether I made the usual rounds and replied or not. _

_Thanks for reading!_


	5. the worlds ahead

_Don't know what an **animal spring rider** is? Look it up (animal spring playground)! Now you won't be like what the fuck is an animal spring when you see it later this chapter and envision Kuroko sitting on some poor ass giraffe with a spring sticking out of its behind._

_You're welcome._

* * *

Kuroko was dead before they reached the hospital. Akashi had informed them, having gone with the dying boy in the ambulance. Pulling the knife from his wound had hastened his death, and for an excruciating period of time, they could not understand _why_ he had done it.

No, that was a lie.

They knew why.

They didn't understand _how_.

"He must have figured something out without telling us," Midorima said. His voice was muted, tired, broken, even. "He must have discovered the culprit through all these letters. And then, to go back in time and stop them for good, he…"

"He did all that."

"What an idiot," Aomine said bitterly.

The next day was spent in darkness and unshed tears as they hashed through what they knew over and over again. They had all gotten letters. Kuroko was stabbed. A lady ran over to help him. But as it turned out, they couldn't even do Kuroko the justice of finding his killer.

Because Kuroko had done it himself.

* * *

"It's a strange case," the officer told Akashi over coffee. "I wouldn't normally be disclosing the information to people outside of the family—but since you—well," he hesitated, glancing at Akashi's pale skin and red-rimmed eyes, "you said you—well, I have a soft spot for those kinds of stories. But don't go spreading this around to everywhere, you hear me? His family wouldn't appreciate it."

"I won't."

The officer sighed like he knew he was doing something wrong, lifted his cap and scratched his head.

"Well, it seemed like Tetsuya-kun knew this was coming somehow. We found his cellphone hidden in his scarf, recording something, and when we listened, it was the voice of this lady—the lady, I guess, who was pretending to help him. 'Look at me, let me watch you die,' or something like that."

Akashi's face grew even paler, lips white. The officer hastily shoved a pastry into his mouth, dissipating his rage before it could collect.

"Justice will be served, kid. We'll find out the story. Thanks to that kid's recording, we were able to track that lady down and arrest her. My colleagues are interrogating her as we speak, so there's no need for you to plan revenge or anything crazy like that."

Unable to help himself, Akashi murmured, "How could I not?"

With a pitying look, the officer reached across the table and patted Akashi on the shoulder.

"I know it's hard, kid, especially since you—you never got to tell him, but you need to let this go. Mourn him without hatred. That's the best thing you can do for him right now. I know it sounds crazy, but as an adult, I'm telling you this. It's better to let go of hatred. I'm not saying to forgive. I'm just saying to heal up and live well so that you can go to Tetsuya-kun later and tell him proudly how you've lived.

"My break is over. If you need anything—help, support, whatever, just call me. I'll be here."

And the officer left, leaving Akashi with an expression too dark to read.

* * *

The winter air almost cracked in the freeze of January. The black coat of one man hugged him tight, barely maintaining warmth as the wind gulped at it greedily. He pulled the collar higher on his neck, burying his face up to his nose in it.

Another man approached him with swift steps and a nonchalance that made him smile. It must be so cold with just that thin jacket on, but he was trying so hard to be cool.

"Daiki."

"Akashi."

The two fell into step as they rounded the corner.

"How's the company going?"

"It could be better. But it also could be worse."

"That's new. The great Akashi Seijuuro struggling with something."

Akashi flashed Aomine a smile, and Aomine shivered.

"And you? The police force?"

"Boring as hell," Aomine said with a yawn. "Not enough miscreants around to keep me busy. I just sit in the booth and help little old ladies home."

"Who else would help them home if not you?"

Aomine grumbled something. He sneezed.

"It's cold."

Akashi took off his gloves and scarf and handed them to Aomine. "Very."

"I guess it's just you and me today, huh?"

Their shoes tapped against the stone steps that led to a cemetery. The trees were stiff and groaned under the wind. As they moved across the field of stones and frost-kissed grass, the ground crunched under their feet.

"Ryouta's flight was delayed and Shintarou is taking an exam. Murasakibara's grandmother is in the hospital, so he isn't able to come. And Taiga—well, Taiga never liked these sorts of reunions."

Aomine snorted. "That's for sure."

They finally stopped in front of a small mound. Akashi knelt down and wiped the frost off the marker while Aomine pulled a few brown weeds.

"It's hard to believe it's already been five years…"

"Yeah, but everyone's moved on fine," Aomine said gruffly. "And I think that would have made Tetsu really happy to see. That his sacrifice wasn't for nothing and that we all became successful—or are on our way to success, in that med-freak Midorima's case," he added as an afterthought.

Akashi smiled, recalling the words five years ago that the officer had said to him.

"I know."

"But are you okay?" Aomine said. Akashi could feel his curious eyes boring into him, but he didn't meet his gaze.

"What do you mean?"

Aomine looked awkward, like they were approaching territory he didn't much want to discuss. Five years ago, he would have just grumbled something and stalked off, but five years and one friend's death later, he was a different man. So he plowed on.

"I mean… well, everyone saw it. After you changed back to the old Akashi you sort of changed more—heck, even _Kagami_ saw it, and he's an idiot amongst idiots. You liked him—a lot, didn't you? Tetsu."

Akashi closed his eyes because it hurt a little too much to bear at the moment. His soft smile stayed on his lips because it had been five years—five years, and the pain had dulled enough for him to remember Kuroko Tetsuya, the quiet boy with a quiet smile and who he'd hurt so much, with a distant fondness like a light dissipated by fog.

"Yes," Akashi said lightly. "I did."

He looked down where Kuroko Tetsuya lay.

"I should have told him sooner. But after what I did to him, I didn't think deserved to."

Aomine sighed and rested a hand on Akashi's shoulder.

"Are you alright?"

Akashi closed his eyes as pain pricked his heart like a needle. It was peculiar, this feeling. It didn't hurt, but it _hurt_.

"I'm alright."

* * *

January 21.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was just beginning to rise.

He dressed quickly, putting on a layer more than he might. It wouldn't stop a direct stab, but it might help against a slash. He smiled at himself in the mirror as these thoughts crossed his mind. Hopefully, there would be no need for these extra precautions.

School passed and lunch came, and Kuroko found himself with his nose buried in a book he must have read a million times by now. Somehow, he couldn't remember the words exactly today; they were a little fuzzy in his mind. He got a distant feeling that someone was calling to him, but he was so caught up in the world of Okabe Rintarou and his friend Mayuri that it wasn't until a voice was shouting right in his ear that he snapped out of it.

"Hey! Kuroko! Geez, what are you reading that's gotten you so engrossed?"

Kuroko emerged from the pages, eyes a little unfocused.

"Kagami-kun. I apologize. This is a very interesting book, so I—"

Kuroko smiled to himself and changed the script.

"—I neglected to pay attention to your negligible existence."

Kagami's eyes just about popped from his head.

"Why you—what kind of—and coming from a kid like you—"

Kuroko just gave him a vague-ish sort of expression and closed his book.

"Did you need me for something?"

Kagami growled until he choked on his own spit, and Kuroko waited patiently for him to recover and gather his wits about him. Ears a little red, Kagami said, "Coach just wants me to make sure you reply to her texts about the send-off party this weekend. Something about how she'll make us climb Mt. Fuji ten times if we don't make it."

Kuroko checked his phone and saw that it was flooded with messages from the seniors. He smiled. The world was changing already.

Yes, he thought to himself, tuning out Kagami's crabbing as he turned his gaze to the winter blue skies, everything would be fine.

Kuroko didn't receive any letters today, but he supposed that his future self had seen no need for it. With memories of the past, Kuroko no longer needed convincing—no longer needed predictions of what would happen where.

He just needed himself and his wits, and all of this would be over.

Yes, by himself, he would create a new branch of parallel worlds where no one had to die.

* * *

The police thought it was a funny prank when Kuroko called them and asked them to be by the bookstore later that night. They told him to do his homework and go to bed and then hung up. He wasn't sure whether someone would be sent out just in case or not, but he shrugged it off. He would—_he hoped—_be able to handle it on his own.

Now, he rested against the window of the bookstore, hands shoved deep in pockets that were still penetrated by the hungry winter chill. He'd checked to make sure that nobody was inside. Midorima wasn't here, oddly, and a little snooping around Touou revealed that Aomine had been called out of town. It worried Kuroko a little bit that the members of this play were not in place, but not much; he was filled by an odd, calm sensation that this bookstore would be where it ended.

After all, it was only right that this nightmare should end where it had begun.

He closed his eyes.

Only a few more minutes.

He saw the man in the grey tracksuit in the distance. He entered the store, counting the seconds. It took forever for the man to pass the door, but when he did, Kuroko quietly slipped back out onto the sidewalk, arms hanging at his sides. He could hear the sound of heels clacking and knew that the lady with the red bag was behind him. Normally, she would be ahead of him with the man in the grey tracksuit, but tonight, Kuroko wanted her to be behind. Because undoubtedly, she would sneak up behind him—_her footsteps picked up the pace_—to be able to dig her knife into his back—_h__e could hear her breaths_—

He heard her move like she was bringing something out of her pocket, but just before her blade pierced through him, Kuroko grabbed her wrist and flung himself around, using the momentum to drive the woman to the ground.

People were shouting, which was odd, because Kuroko was sure that only he, the man in the grey tracksuit, and the lady with the red bag were the only ones on the street. But before he could gather his breath, he was being shoved roughly out of the way, and a horde of uniformed men and women were converging on the lady with the red bag, pinning her down and shouting her arrest.

Dazed, Kuroko struggled to his feet. His knees buckled. A pair of hands caught him under the arms, heaved him back up, and turned him around, and he was staring into a pair of blazing red eyes.

_"Are you alright?"_

"Akashi," Kuroko stuttered. "You weren't supposed to be—"

"I received a package from myself in the future," Akashi said, and a look of perturbation crossed his face. "I didn't expect it to be true, but just in case, I took precautions… You seemed to have a plan, so I didn't interrupt—though I would have if I'd known you were going to do something like this."

He gestured to the knife gleaming on the street and the screaming woman. Kuroko smiled wanly.

"I'm glad you didn't."

"I will next time," Akashi said sharply. Seeing Kuroko's vague expression, he shook his head, and a smile ghosted across his face. "Although I suppose that now, there will never be a next time."

Kuroko and Akashi were brought in for questioning. There wasn't really much they could say. Who would believe in premonitory letters being sent from the future, especially when it was a tale told by high schoolers? Akashi fabricated a simple story that fit the bill and made Kuroko commit it to memory: Akashi had observed some suspicious behavior, called the police, and Kuroko had been caught up in it while the police were making observations.

"Well, I'm sorry that you had to be implicated in something so terrifying as this," the police officer sighed. He lifted his cap and scratched his head a little, flipping through his papers. "It's hard enough to be a high schooler even without these freak incidents."

Kuroko smiled, like he was hiding a little secret—he'd experienced much more terrifying things.

"Apparently, her son committed suicide early in high school. She was convinced that it was because of some middle school basketball team that crushed his school during a tournament and thought the best way to appease her son's spirit was to kill you guys and send you to him in the afterlife to apologize. Crazy talk, I know, but when you lose a child, it's tough. She was screaming it the entire way to jail," the officer said. Suddenly, he grabbed them by a shoulder each and grinned.

"But don't let a word of that get into your heads, alright? It's not your fault her son died. Now get outta here. You might get called in later as witnesses or whatnot, but for now, I think you should go back to your families and take a nice, long rest."

Kuroko's grandmother was waiting for him out in the front; as soon as she saw him, she leaped up and crushed him in a hug.

"Are you alright?"

He smiled and buried his face in her shoulder.

"I'm alright."

* * *

He was flying.

Just a little bit. That one moment when he was suspended in the air as the swing was being pulled back to the earth. The wind rushed against him, chilling him more, but he didn't mind. He was waiting for someone, and this was enough to pass the time.

"So."

Kuroko smiled and dragged his feet on the ground to bring himself to a stop. Akashi was staring at him, arms folded, from across the swing set.

"I guess you have a lot of questions for me, Akashi-kun," Kuroko said lightly. Akashi snorted, arms falling to his sides. He sat down on a small animal spring. It was an odd sight, and Kuroko couldn't help but laugh a little.

He joined him, bouncing lightly on a giraffe.

"It began with a letter…"

Akashi was silent as Kuroko told his story. As the narration wound down, he took a deep breath and looked to the skies.

"You are a fool. Brave, but a fool."

Kuroko smiled because he knew Akashi would have liked to punch him right now. And, Kuroko supposed, if it were Kagami or Aomine standing before him right now, he might have been punched. Maybe that was happening in a different, parallel world right at this moment.

"I suppose. But it was worth it. Now I'm able to finally move on and see what this new world brings."

"That's… one way to put it," Akashi said. "Since everything about this situation is so—inconceivable, I will let it slide this time, Tetsuya. But a second time—"

"It won't happen," Kuroko assured. "I think—no, I'm sure of that. No more letters," he said lightly. "No more sacrifices."

"No more," Akashi said firmly.

"But speaking of letters, Akashi-kun, what did yours say?"

"Mine? Mine was a collection of—I guess all of your letters. Yours, Ryouta's, Daiki's—everyone's, and one letter from me. I didn't want to believe any of it. It was hard to believe, but—"

"It's a odd thing, right? It makes you believe."

Akashi sighed, looking a little frustrated.

"I suppose so. The letter—or myself from five years into the future—told me to move everyone from the area and said to tell the police to gather at that bookstore. So I did—I called Ryouta, Shintarou, Daiki, and Satsuki just in case and made sure they would be out of town tonight. And then I came here, called the police, saw you, and just waited."

"I must have given you a fright. But thank you for that."

Kuroko didn't have anything else to say, so they sat in silence. The sun descended and the moon rose, and little stars wove themselves into the fabric of the night. A shiver ran down Kuroko's spine and he shuffled his hands deep into his pockets, which were still a little too cold.

"Tetsuya."

Kuroko turned, because Akashi's voice was a little different, laced with hesitation and uncertainty all at the same time. The streetlights reflected off his eyes, giving them a warm sort of glow that reminded Kuroko how very beautiful he found that crimson color.

"There was one more thing the letter told me."

"And what was that?"

Akashi waited a long time, like he was battling over something internally. Kuroko had never seen him hesitate so, and his curiosity raised its head, tickling in his chest.

"'Before it's too late, tell him.'"

The night following the entire incident, sleep escaped Kuroko because he wondered what would happen next. Having, apparently, veered this world off its course and created a new future, what would happen next? Revelation of such parallel worlds, of branches of worlds with subtle difference struck him hard, and he realized that this meant that there must be a million Kuroko Tetsuyas living a million different lives he would never have privy to. He could imagine and speculate and fantasize—_maybe he was a superhero in one world; how exciting would that be—_but he would never know. He could only guess what kind of world was waiting for him—here and for all of his parallel selves across this new branch he created himself. It had bothered him. He hadn't quite been able to come to terms with it yet.

But as he watched Akashi lean forward, he felt that dissatisfaction melt away in the strangest way possible. Like it was being blown away by a million little butterflies fluttering in his stomach. His hands were no longer cold; no, they were several degrees too warm; everything was a little too warm for him as he stared into Akashi's eyes, which were a mere five inches away from his.

"If… you don't feel the same way, then don't… and although I may not deserve it considering all that I've done to you… but, may I?"

Kuroko said no words, just bridged the distance and closed his eyes.

So there was this kind of world waiting for him, too.

Kuroko smiled into Akashi's lips.

He didn't mind this so much.

* * *

_To group: Rainbow Unicorn Power Rangers!_

_Today, 2:23 PM_

_[Let's go play in the snow!  
[Everybody!  
[Yes!]_

_[Kise you are  
[the most  
[annoying little fuck I have ever known]_

_[you don't mean that Aominecchi  
[c'mon, everyone's around so we may as well  
[plsssssssss  
[plsssss  
[plssss]_

_[stop flooding my texts!]_

_[Kagamicchi! Just in time come with us!  
[the lake is iced over so we can go  
[~ice skating~ ;D]_

_[I would enjoy that.]_

_[see? Be as cool as Kurokocchi everybody!]_

_[I will be present.]_

_[:O  
[8O  
[(8O]_

_[STOP SPAMMING KISE I S2G]_

_[But Akashicchi  
[Akashicchi!  
__[Akashicchi actually wants to go!]_

_[Please, let's go. I would like to see everyone again. It's been a while.]_

_[Well, when you put it like that, Tetsu  
[geez  
[fine I guess]_

_[don't give me that look kuroko stop STOP]_

_[I'm sitting right across from you, Kagami-kun. You don't have to text me.] _

_[h]_

_[Murasakibaracchi's too lazy to type again lol]_

_[u]_

_[r]_

_[a]_

_[that's mean! :(]_

_[whatd he even say]_

_["You're annoying" nanodayo]_

_[fck you guys are weird  
[im outta this freak show  
[KUROKO I SAID STOP OK ILL GO STOP] _

* * *

"Come here you annoying little bastard, I will smash your phone to oblivion—"

"I love you too, Kagamicchi!"

"Your enthusiasm is nauseating! Get the hell away from me or I'll cut you with these skates!"

Kuroko chuckled to himself as he watched Kagami throw his ice skates at Kise's head—never mind that they were dangerously close to slicing his face off. A hand weighed on his head, and he looked up.

"Hello, Murasakibara-kun."

"Oh? No protests today, Kuro-chin? You sick?"

Kuroko smiled.

"Just happy."

"Weird," Murasakibara said, retracting his hand with a suspicious gaze. "Whatever."

"Thanks for coming."

Murasakibara waved his hand dismissively and stepped onto the lake. He fell flat on his butt.

Kise had to cling onto Midorima to keep himself upright as he laughed.

Kuroko closed his eyes and smiled. He loved this peace.

Because none of them had received a letter, nobody, aside from Akashi, would know what he'd done—what all of them had done. Nobody would know how much they'd suffered, the terror they'd experienced, the death they'd befriended. Nobody would know that for a brief moment in time, Kuroko Tetsuya had been thrust into the spotlight and had unwittingly become the main character of this peculiar story…

But that was alright.

It was alright with him.

Because now they could stand together like this on glittering ice between snow banks without a single care in the world.

"Tetsu! Are you coming or what?"

Maybe he'd write a book on it one day. A smile ghosted Kuroko's lips. He liked that idea. He pulled his scarf a little tighter around his neck and stepped onto the frozen lake.

Of course, he immediately slipped and fell flat on his face, and the rest burst into laughter. Kise skated around him, flailing his arms as he struggled to maintain balance, and of course, Akashi, as smooth as could be, glided over and helped Kuroko up.

"Are you alright?" he asked Kuroko. There was a twinkle in his eyes that mirrored the sun's dying rays that scattered across the ice.

"Yes," Kuroko said. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the crisp, winter air.

"I'm alright."

* * *

_I usually never write any pairings because I can just never really see them happening (and can't write romance for shit)… which is why I usually lurk in the OC section when I'm feeling romancy. Especially AkaKuro, I can't really see it—in canon, Akashi just looks at Kuroko objectively, is pretty much just a dick, and there's no fucking reason why he would fall for Kuroko/vice versa with that sort of shit attitude._

_But like fuck it. This one wrote itself. I hope nobody minds. lol. Somehow, I always get a little disappointed when I'm reading a great AU or something and then BAM pairing I'm not really into. I'm all about friendship and bromance, but __**R**__omance? Not so much._

_(MY FIRST ROMANCE/YAOI WOW. I AM A CHANGED WOMAN.)_

_I didn't actually read the previous chapter before writing this, so may be some inconsistencies. Confused about parallel worlds? Posted a pic on my tumblr, atunnelofdreams. Might be helpful._

_Anyways, thanks for sticking with Inked in Orange through its ups and confusing downs. Stay safe and may 2016 be the best year yet. __Luck and love from this grateful author,_

_hokkyokukou_


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